


sunset glow

by boundinshallows (museme87)



Series: cradlesong [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, Break Up, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-08 04:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20308204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows
Summary: There's one last thing Tommy needs to discuss with Alfie at their monthly meeting.





	sunset glow

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be writing a non-ABO smutty Alfie/Tommy one-shot. I stayed up doing this instead. 
> 
> Proceeds my earlier fic "cradlesong," but it's not necessary to read that to get a sense for the 'verse. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to TinyPineTrees for being my gateway drug to ABO fic and for the support.

“You’re not getting an extra twenty percent on the next shipment, Alfie. It’s not up for discussion.”

Of course, he’s not fucking getting it. He knows that. Tommy knows he knows that. It’s a fucking ridiculous request, as far as requests go, even for him. Still, Alfie did get a certain delight from watching Tommy’s eyebrow cock at the demand, at the way the corner of his mouth pulled downward for the briefest of moments while he sussed out whether Alfie is fucking with him or not.

Alfie sits back in his chair, linking his fingers together over his stomach, and studies Tommy. They hardly sit for longer than a minute in silence before Tommy’s rolling those pretty eyes at him and scoffing.

“Ten." 

Alfie smirks.

“Fifteen, mate. And only because I’m a reasonable man,” he says, opening his arms to convey just how magnanimous he’s being.

“Reasonable is not a word I’ve come to associate with you.”

“All that extra work you’re having my bakers do? I’m being an absolute prince, offering you that. A fucking delight.”

“Twelve,” Tommy concedes, his tone long suffering. “If you promise it’s the last fucking word on the matter, eh.”

“Done!” he says, making a note of the figure on a contract and sliding it to Tommy to sign.

Sighing, Tommy leans forward and scrawls his signature on the line. After the ink settles for a moment, Alfie takes it back and drops it in a pile of paperwork to his left, pleased. He’d only expected Tommy to agree to eight percent at most, so this is a very fucking lucrative turn of events. Tommy must be feeling soft at the moment. No other fucking explanation because the extra work is a pittance compared to the payout.

Alfie expects to look over to see Tommy rising from his chair now that their negotiations are sorted, but he finds Tommy still seated. In the half year or so he’s come to know Tommy, Alfie likes to think he has a good read on Tommy’s emotions. Has a bit of a gift for things like that, doesn’t he? And he’s gotten better at it, hasn’t he, in the few months that he’s had Tommy in his bed. Tommy’s still guarded, more guarded than any man naked with a cock up his arse has any right to be, as far as Alfie’s concerned, but the point is, Alfie’s perceptive.

He doesn’t show it because he’s not about to give Tommy the fucking satisfaction, but Alfie’s a little perplexed, then, when he can’t quite make out what’s happening inside Tommy’s head, behind that stony expression. It’s not business, he decides. Tommy wouldn’t let the silence linger if there was something more to discuss. And it’s not fucking either because Tommy’s become comfortable with rattling off a time for later in the day, the implication clear that Alfie should expect him.

But if it’s not business and it’s not fucking, Alfie has no bloody idea what it could possibly be because that’s the extent of it, isn’t it? That’s the sum of his and Tommy’s relationship.

Something must convey his confusion though because Tommy’s gaze flickers down for a moment as he clears his throat.

“There’s one other thing,” he begins. “As a matter of courtesy, eh?”

“Oh, well if we’re being courteous, mate. By all fucking means.” 

“I’m pregnant.” 

When he frowns, he watches Tommy’s brow raise.

“You’re…”

“Pregnant, yeah.” 

Pregnant, right. Not impossible, Alfie thinks, but unmated omegas rarely conceive. It takes a certain kind of biological compatibility between two people for that to happen, and Alfie never once thought that he and Tommy had that fucking chemistry. And yeah, the things Tommy’s scent did to him made him react viscerally to the younger man, maybe more than he’d ever experienced with an omega before, but Alfie hardly thinks that he should have known it would have resulted in…_this_.

A fucking baby. 

“Right then. I can give you the address of a woman who—”

“Won’t be necessary.” 

For a moment, he’s convinced that Tommy has it all sorted, that there’s some woman in Small Heath that will set him to rights, and all will be as it was. And that’s the most sensible fucking decision Tommy Shelby has ever fucking made, by Alfie’s own estimation, which is a pretty good estimation if he does say so himself. Because it’s not like he has anything against children personally, right, and maybe someday he would get around to having one of his own. But it won’t be with Tommy fucking Shelby because Tommy fucking Shelby is the closest thing Alfie has seen to a walking, human disaster. He’s going to get himself killed one day, and Alfie wants no part in all that business—at least not anymore—thank you very much.

Except.

Except if there is a woman in Small Health, Tommy wouldn’t be here, telling him about all this, now would he?

“Tommy,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Business will carry on as normal. It won’t affect you at all.” 

The way Tommy says it with complete fucking ease, as if he has this all planned out and nothing could possibly go fucking wrong with that plan, makes Alfie laugh. It’s soft, almost a scoff, and Alfie isn’t sorry for it. 

“That so?” he asks. 

“Fuck off, Alfie. I’m not about to play house with you just because you had a part in this.” Tommy pauses, redirecting his gaze, and his tone softens. “I’ve always considered having one of my own. I just never thought I could without being mated. And I don’t fucking want that.” 

Tommy’s confession comes as a surprise to Alfie, snuffing out some of the fire licking his insides. They don’t share little glimpses of themselves, not beyond their bodies and what business requires of them. Tommy didn’t have to say anything to him; he doesn’t owe him an explanation. He can do whatever the fuck he wants with himself, and Alfie can’t do a thing about it unless he wants to put a bullet in his head. It’s not as if Alfie hasn’t considered it when Tommy’s being a right little shit, but there’s no real heat behind the urge, not anymore.

“It’s not personal,” Tommy adds. “It could have been anybody’s, and I’d have kept it.”

Alfie doesn’t know if that’s meant to make him feel better, but it’s missed it’s fucking mark, if so. He doesn’t have any claim to Tommy. They’re not mated. Tommy made his disinterest in that very clear the first time they fucked, and Alfie’s not a fucking masochist, is he?

And yet?

And yet. 

“Just so happens to be mine.” 

“It’s _mine_,” Tommy says, and the warning is implicit. “You’re not a part of this.”

“So that’s it then? Because if that’s it, then that’s fucking it, innit?”

Before he can even think it through entirely, he makes the ultimatum. And it’s fucking childish is what it is: cutting Tommy out because Tommy is cutting him out. It’s not as if he has some desire to be a father to Tommy’s baby; he’s always successfully navigated his baser, alpha urges. Nothing but trouble, those. So, it’s not about Tommy taking away something he wants. In fact, _he’s _denying _himself _something that he has, up until this very moment, fucking rejoiced in: Tommy’s arse. But it’s all borrowed time now anyway, innit? In a few short months, Tommy won’t have any interest in him or his cock anyway once the baby gets bigger. He’s just being kinder to himself, calling it all off now. 

“Yeah, it’s over,” Tommy confirms, standing. “I’ll see you next month for our meeting then.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah so that was a little on the angsty side of things. I promise the whole series itself has a happy ending. The road to that ending, however, is a little bumpy, my friends. 
> 
> I'm around on Tumblr: [boundinshallows](https://boundinshallows.tumblr.com)


End file.
